Abstract
This growing reliance on technology in many diverse areas has created an unprecedented amount of opportunities for hackers to exploit systems and breach databases, committing cybercrimes. When it comes to their actions, hackers could be motivated by various reasons: some of them commit crimes for financial gain, others do it to support a nation-state hacking program, and some is driven by social causes they support. Hackers belong to the last group are named hacktivists. Hacktivism by itself is a form of expressing conflict and dissatisfaction with the current political and socioeconomic states. By better understanding the hacktivists' motivations, legislators can consider possible changes to current policies or even develop new ones to reflect the fast pace of technology and to reduce the impact of such acts to our critical infrastructure, government agencies, and everyday life.
Recommended Citation
Plachkinova, Miloslava and Vo, Au, "Hacktivism and Its Impact on Society" (2019). AMCIS 2019 Proceedings. 35.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2019/treo/treos/35
Hacktivism and Its Impact on Society
This growing reliance on technology in many diverse areas has created an unprecedented amount of opportunities for hackers to exploit systems and breach databases, committing cybercrimes. When it comes to their actions, hackers could be motivated by various reasons: some of them commit crimes for financial gain, others do it to support a nation-state hacking program, and some is driven by social causes they support. Hackers belong to the last group are named hacktivists. Hacktivism by itself is a form of expressing conflict and dissatisfaction with the current political and socioeconomic states. By better understanding the hacktivists' motivations, legislators can consider possible changes to current policies or even develop new ones to reflect the fast pace of technology and to reduce the impact of such acts to our critical infrastructure, government agencies, and everyday life.